While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Degrees of comparison are frequently
expressed, both by deaf-mutes and by Indians, by adding to
the generic or descriptive sign that for "big" or "little."
Damp would be "wet—little"; cool,
"cold—little"; hot, "warm—much." The amount or force
of motion also often indicates corresponding diminution or
augmentation, but sometimes expresses a different shade of
meaning, as is reported by Dr. Matthews with reference to
the sign for bad and contempt, see page 411.
This change in degree of motion is, however, often used for
emphasis only, as is the raising of the voice in speech or
italicizing and capitalizing in print. The Prince of Wied
gives an instance of a comparison in his sign for
excessively hard, first giving that for hard, viz:
Open the left hand, and strike against it several times with
the right (with the backs of the fingers). Afterwards he
gives hard, excessively, as follows: Sign for hard,
then place the left index-finger upon the right shoulder, at
the same time extend and raise the right arm high, extending
the index-finger upward, perpendicularly.
Rev. G.L. Deffenbaugh describes what may perhaps be regarded
as an intensive sign among the Sahaptins in connection with
the sign for good; i.e., very good. "Place the left
hand in position in front of the body with all fingers
closed except first, thumb lying on second, then with
forefinger of right hand extended in same way point to end
of forefinger of left hand, move it up the arm till near the
body and then to a point in front of breast to make the sign
good." For the latter see Extracts from Dictionary
page 487, infra. The same special motion is prefixed
to the sign for bad as an intensive.
Another intensive is reported by Mr. Benjamin Clark,
interpreter at the Kaiowa, Comanche, and Wichita agency,
Indian Territory, in which after the sign for bad is
made, that for strong is used by the Comanches as
follows: Place the clinched left fist horizontally in front
of the breast, back forward, then pass the palmar side of
the right fist downward in front of the knuckles of the
left.
Dr. W.H. Corbusier, assistant surgeon U.S.A., writes as
follows in response to a special inquiry on the subject: "By
carrying the right fist from behind forward over the left,
instead of beginning the motion six inches above it, the
Arapaho sign for strong is made. For brave,
first strike the chest over the heart with the right fist
two or three times, and then make the sign for strong.
"The sign for strong expresses the superlative when
used with other signs; with coward it denotes a base coward;
with hunger, starvation; and with sorrow, bitter sorrow. I
have not seen it used with the sign for pleasure or that of
hunger, nor can I learn that it is ever used with them."
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Sign Language
Among North American Indians Compared with
that Among Other Peoples and Deaf-Mutes,
1881
